Sonnet#323

No sonnet sits upon this place to make

a little sense from senselessness, no

poem dances out the poison, shimmy shake

The Tarantella is not needed her, so

too the military march, there is no poem

standing here, upon this moving mark

And so abandons pages, forgiveness, and pain

And carry all the things I might have heark-

ened in my brain, I let it all remain

I shattered up the rhyme scheme because no poem

is here, just scattering denials and words

that scatter into more words and a bit absurd

How we just line things up and say the words

And pretend that you can hear me speaking the absurd

Sonnet #326

From all the darkness that I gather

All the moonlight reflected, all the stars

I find the center of the warm dark, the bars

of the cage of the world of me, were 

I in sun, I cannot think for long, 

There's too much light, too much beauty

I have too much to live, too much duty

To the living world, but the dark song

lingers in my chest, the knowing what comes

For if it can be taken from me, it is not

me. If I could lose a hand and still be some-

one, then my hand is not me. If I could stop

My heart and pull it out and put another one

And I remain, eternal self, let all flesh drop

Sonnet #325

 Nothing prepares us for a restless night

We expect — we always expect — to dream

Expect to wake refreshed and stretch the light

But when the air is still and calm and we seem

Unable to breathe inside of it, unable to settle

It always comes as such a surprise, a gift of time

In darkness, a gift where we are left to wrestle

Out the ransoms of the daylight, scrape the slime

Off our psyche, read a book, go for walks, be still

Here is the restless hour, the long night, ticking clocks

Alone in this limping, humid storm-swept swell

To think and think and think until the mind is locked

And the windows finally shut, and night guests ramble

Until their voices stop, after the party, and words untangle